It Begins

They say, “Write about what you know.”

I know about wild, random, racing thoughts flooding my brain with images, fragments of conversations, and unedited emotions. I struggle to find a meaningful thought in the midst of surging emotional downpours. I function on two channels. One channel of my brain is processing and the other is output. Occasionally they overlap when I am talking, and I may use words in atypical ways or start a new conversation altogether. I edit what I can into appropriate remarks, constantly writing scripts—that are rarely, ever useful—for multiple scenarios in my head that have rarely ever resembled the real outcome.

I was a demanding infant, rarely sleeping for more than 2-3 hours at a time. Milk and dairy were not my friends, so I was a formula baby. My mother said she held me in her left arm and did everything else with her right arm for the first year of my life. I was always moving some part of my body, sometimes even in my sleep. I talked at 9 months, walked at 11 months, and was very hard on shoes.

When I was three, we moved about 10 miles outside of the city to a close-knit rural community. We had an acre and a half, mostly wooded, with older neighbors on either side and a farm behind. My older brother and I spent a lot of time outdoors, and it was therapy. We had dogs; ones that were ours and dogs that took up at our house. Being in the woods with the dogs—and my brother until I was about 10 or 11— helped me deal with my excess energy. I attended Sunday School at a local church with children I would also attend the local elementary school for 6 years.

And then there was middle school with 56-minute classes and 4 minutes to get from one class to another. I did not handle the rigid schedule well and opted not to attend class for the first two weeks of the school year only returning to cash in on the press I received for winning a local newspaper contest. I did well academically but could not wait to get home everyday and be with the trees and the dogs. Then there was a defining event for my generation when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. And the defining event for my life when my brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia two months later.

So, this is what I know.